O Facebook denied last week any involvement with the so-called #10yearchallenge, where users post a current photo and 10 photo years ago for their friends and followers to see how they've changed (or not) in this period.
The idea of the #10yearchallenge challenge is simple: user publishes a current photo and 2009 photo to show his followers Twitter, Facebook ou Instagram how their appearance has changed in the last ten years. Then the businesswoman Kate O'Neill raised a theory: and if this were used to train facial recognition algorithms? What if Facebook was behind it?
In a published article, O'Neill states that his intention was not "to claim that the challenge is inherently dangerous". However, the expert does not deny that the facial recognition technology landscape is a trend that people should be more aware of - especially in the face of all the scandals caused by data collection and leaks in 2018, and in particular the Cambrigde Analytica case. and Facebook's direct involvement in this.
However, Facebook denied its direct participation in the creation of the challenge, said that the challenge was generated by the users of the network itself. In addition, a social networking representative added that it is possible to disable the facial recognition option to tag people in photos.
“The 10-year challenge was created by users who started on their own, without our involvement. It is evidence of how people have fun on Facebook, and that's it ”, said the social network in its official Twitter profile.
